IE 11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Briefs: New Orleans IT Vendor Probe Widens

‘Analytics lab’ for state and local government expanded; Michigan Gov.-elect touts shared services among localities, schools.

Technology vendor Mark St. Pierre, who is accused of funneling kickbacks to former New Orleans technology officials in exchange for millions government contracts, has been charged with  bribing a second top official.

“Now, St. Pierre is charged with also funneling $22,000 in payoffs to Anthony Jones, who served as director of management information systems at City Hall from 2005 through 2007 and later became chief technology officer,” according to The Times-Picayune newspaper.

Jones pleaded guilty to taking the kickbacks Dec. 15.

Previously former city chief technology officer Greg Meffert has admitted in federal court to taking $860,000 in kickbacks from a company controlled by St. Pierre in exchange for steering $4 million in no-bid contracts to the company.

Source: The Times-Picayune

‘Analytics Lab’ for State and Local Government Expanded

Analytics vendor SAS is adding 100 employees in its analytics lab that crunches data for state and local government.

Working in the company’s new 38,000-square-foot data center in Cary, N.C., the new workers, to be added during the next two years, will join 200 existing employees who devise solutions that identify fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid, unemployment benefits and other government programs.

The company says it expects demand to only increase for data analytics in state and local government.

“Demand for hosted services among state and local governments has risen sharply,” said John Brocklebank, leader of the SAS Advanced Analytics Lab, in a statement.

Michigan Gov.-Elect Touts Shared Services Among Localities, Schools

Gov.-elect Rick Snyder has floated the idea that the state’s municipal governments and school districts should share services.

There are “huge opportunities for service consolidation, whether it be between municipalities, between school districts or with the state partnering with those organizations to do things more collectively,” he said in an interview with The Detroit News.

Snyder’s remarks, made in the context of possible cost cutting, said the state should improve e-government services available online.

Source: The Detroit News

 

Miriam Jones is a former chief copy editor of Government Technology, Governing, Public CIO and Emergency Management magazines.